A British judge ruled against a man who wants to excavate a landfill where he says a hard drive with access to thousands of bitcoins was mistakenly dumped over 11 years ago.

Since 2013, James Howells has been hoping to recover a laptop hard drive that he says contains the private key for cryptocurrency which he says he mined in 2009. We wrote about it at the time, noting that the value of a bitcoin had just passed $1,000, making 7,500 bitcoins worth $7.5 million.

The alleged number of bitcoins has changed a bit, with Howells now saying he lost 8,000 bitcoins. The bitcoin price exceeded $100,000 last month and was worth over $95,636 as of this writing, or $765 million for 8,000 bitcoins.

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At the end of 2024, a US court authorized the Department of Justice to sell 69,370 bitcoins from "the largest cryptocurrency seizure in history."

At bitcoin's current price, just under $92,000, these bitcoins are worth nearly $6.4 billion, and crypto outlets are reporting that DOJ officials have said they're planning to proceed with selling off the assets consistent with the court's order. The DOJ had reportedly argued that bitcoin's price volatility was a pressing reason to push for permission for the sale.

Ars has reached out to the DOJ for comment and will update the story with any new information regarding next steps.

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Key Takeaways The DOJ has been cleared to sell 69,370 Bitcoin seized from Silk Road, valued at $6.5B. Battle Born Investments contested the sale but couldn’t block it. The decision comes just 2 weeks before the new Trump administration, which […]

The post The US government cleared to sell $6.5 billion in Bitcoin seized from Silk Road first appeared on Tech Startups.

The extradition of Do Kwon, the co-founder of Terraform Labs, to the United States marks a significant milestone in the cryptocurrency industry. For investors, it underscores the importance of identifying the best cryptocurrency to invest in, particularly as the market […]

The post What Kwon’s Extradition Means for Investors first appeared on Tech Startups.

It’s been some time since we last featured KuCoin, one of the best cryptocurrency exchanges known for enabling trades in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and over 700 altcoins. In recent months, the KuCoin team has been quietly working on its new offerings, […]

The post KuCoin launches KuCoin Pay, enabling QR-code crypto point-of-sale payments and revolutionizing retail first appeared on Tech Startups.

Ahead of a major crackdown on illegal cryptocurrency mines in Russia next year, a power provider in Siberia has been fined for illegally leasing state land that's supposed to be used only for public utilities to an illegal mining operation.

In a social media post translated by Ars, the Irkutsk Region Prosecutor-General’s Office explained that the power provider was fined more than 330,000 rubles (about $3,000) for the improper land use. Local prosecutors will also pursue an administrative case against the power provider, the office said.

Crypto mining is popular in Siberia because of low operating costs, Crypto News noted, due to the cool temperatures and cheap power supply. But many in Siberia have blamed crypto miners for power outages and grid instability that can cause significant harms during winter months.

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Craig Wright, the man who claims he invented bitcoin and has been filing lawsuits asserting intellectual property rights, was sentenced to a year in prison yesterday for committing contempt of court.

The sentence is suspended and can be enforced if Wright continues violating court rulings—but he may be able to avoid imprisonment by staying away from countries that have extradition agreements with the UK. Wright defied an order to attend a court hearing in person this week and said he is in Asia.

Wright "was sentenced for contempt of court on Thursday" for bringing a 911 billion pound ($1.1 trillion) lawsuit "against Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's payments company Block in Britain," Reuters wrote.

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Getting paid in cryptocurrencies may sound like a bad idea, but this could be an actually useful feature for international contractors. Remote, the company that lets you hire people and manage contractors all around the world, is introducing crypto payouts on Tuesday. Companies based in the U.S. can start paying their contractors with stablecoins in […]

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Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high, continuing a rally that has seen its value climb over 50% since the U.S. presidential election on November 5. On Sunday, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency briefly surpassed $106,000 before pulling back as […]

The post Bitcoin surges to new record high above $106,000 as investors predict $120,000 by year-end first appeared on Tech Startups.

A bitcoin investor who went to increasingly great lengths to hide $1 million in cryptocurrency gains on his tax returns was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday.

It seems that not even his most "sophisticated" tactics—including using mixers, managing multiple wallets, and setting up in-person meetings to swap bitcoins for cash—kept the feds from tracing crypto trades that he believed were untraceable.

The Austin, Texas, man, Frank Richard Ahlgren III, started buying up bitcoins in 2011. In 2015, he upped his trading, purchasing approximately 1,366 using Coinbase accounts. He waited until 2017 before cashing in, earning $3.7 million after selling about 640 at a price more than 10 times his initial costs. Celebrating his gains, he bought a house in Utah in 2017, mostly funded by bitcoins he purchased in 2015.

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Byte Federal operates 1,200 Bitcoin ATMs in the U.S. A data breach comprised 58,000 customer's information.

Late Wednesday, bitcoin hit $100,000—a major milestone for the cryptocurrency, which has been experiencing a massive upswing since Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election.

Trump is a shiny new crypto supporter, launching his own cryptocurrency on the campaign trail and hoping to woo crypto enthusiast voters by promising to slacken the Biden administration's heightened scrutiny of cryptocurrency.

According to CNN, bitcoin's latest record high came shortly after Trump announced his intentions to nominate Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) once Gary Gensler—a noted crypto critic—resigns on Inauguration Day.

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The price of Bitcoin reached an all-time high of $103,000 on Wednesday, breaking the $100,000 milestone for the first time in its history. This achievement marks a pivotal moment for the cryptocurrency market, capping off a year of substantial growth […]

The post Bitcoin hits $100,000 for the first time in history. Surges to all-time high price of $103,000 first appeared on Tech Startups.

In July 2023, Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the bankrupt crypto lending platform Celsius Network, was arrested on fraud charges after an investigation into the fall of the seven-year-old crypto startup. Now, just over a year later, […]

The post Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky pleads guilty to multi-billion-dollar fraud, faces up to 30 years in prison first appeared on Tech Startups.

Gizmodo obtained complaints about Johnny Depp impersonation scams through a FOIA request to the FTC.

Crypto casinos have revolutionized the online gaming industry in ways unmatched by previous innovations. Traditional online betting systems often subject players to slow transactions and limited privacy. For those seeking alternatives outside of GamStop, options like slots not on GamStop […]

The post How Crypto Casinos Are Changing the Rules of Online Gaming first appeared on Tech Startups.

Bitcoin continued its remarkable surge on Thursday, edging closer to the significant $100,000 milestone as investors anticipated a friendlier U.S. regulatory landscape under President-elect Donald Trump. A renewed wave of optimism surrounding cryptocurrencies is fueling what many are calling a […]

The post Bitcoin nears $100,000 as pro-crypto sentiment surges under Donald Trump’s second presidency first appeared on Tech Startups.